page_title: Indo-European languages
section_title: Satem and centum languages
hierarchical_section_title: Indo-European languages / Classification / Satem and centum languages
caption_attribution_description: The Indo-European language groups as of 500 B.C.E, along with selected isoglosses. Blue: Centum languages Red-orange: Satem languages Orange: Languages exhibiting augment Green: Languages exhibiting PIE *-tt- &gt; -ss- Tan: Languages exhibiting PIE *-tt- &gt; -st- Pink: Languages in which the instrumental, dative, and ablative plurals, as well as certain singulars and duals, exhibit endings beginning in -m-, rather than the usual *-bh-.
context_page_description: The Indo-European languages are a large language family native to western Eurasia. It comprises most of the languages of Europe together with those of the northern Indian Subcontinent and the Iranian Plateau. A few of these languages, such as English and Spanish, have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across all continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, the largest of which are the Indo-Iranian, Germanic, Romance, and Balto-Slavic groups. The most populous individual languages within them are Spanish, English, Hindustani, Portuguese, Bengali, Punjabi, and Russian, each with over 100 million speakers. German, French, Marathi, Italian, and Persian have more than 50 million each. In total, 46% of the world's population speaks an Indo-European language as a first language, by far the highest of any language family. There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by Ethnologue, with over two thirds of them belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch.
context_section_description: The division of the Indo-European languages into satem and centum groups was put forward by Peter von Bradke in 1890, although Karl Brugmann did propose a similar type of division in 1886. In the satem languages, which include the Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian branches, as well as (in most respects) Albanian and Armenian, the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European palatovelars remained distinct and were fricativized, while the labiovelars merged with the 'plain velars'. In the centum languages, the palatovelars merged with the plain velars, while the labiovelars remained distinct. The results of these alternative developments are exemplified by the words for "hundred" in Avestan (satem) and Latin (centum)—the initial palatovelar developed into a fricative [s] in the former, but became an ordinary velar [k] in the latter.
  Rather than being a genealogical separation, the centum–satem division is commonly seen as resulting from innovative changes that spread across PIE dialect-branches over a particular geographical area; the centum–satem isogloss intersects a number of other isoglosses that mark distinctions between features in the early IE branches. It may be that the centum branches in fact reflect the original state of affairs in PIE, and only the satem branches shared a set of innovations, which affected all but the peripheral areas of the PIE dialect continuum. Kortlandt proposes that the ancestors of Balts and Slavs took part in satemization before being drawn later into the western Indo-European sphere.
caption: Some significant isoglosses in Indo-European daughter languages at around 500 BC.   Blue: centum languages   Red: satem languages   Orange: languages with augment   Green: languages with PIE *-tt- > -ss-   Tan: languages with PIE *-tt- > -st-   Pink: languages with instrumental, dative and ablative plural endings (and some others) in *-m- rather than *-bh-
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